Speculative Co-design With AI: An Artist-Friendly Prototype for Non-Human Avatar Creation

This technical demonstration responds to the growing importance of virtual identity. It introduces an artist-friendly, no-code prototype designed specifically to transparently integrate speculative AI processes into artistic co-design methods focused on virtual identity exploration. Artists and designers often struggle to effectively integrate AI into their creative practice because packaged commercial AI tools rarely accommodate their unique visual language and generally obscure creative control through black-box interfaces. These tools typically lack transparency for advanced users and are inconvenient when managing diverse creative inputs, especially in participatory co-design contexts involving multiple contributors. Addressing these challenges, this demonstration showcases a prototype developed using ComfyUI, a visual, node-based interface for building generative AI workflows without coding, combined with custom-trained LoRA models to ensure visual consistency and personal artistic expression in participant-driven avatar generation. Grounded in literature emphasising AI’s potential to foster imaginative engagement through transparency and creative flexibility, this transparent AI tool supports co-design activities, encouraging a wider community of creative practitioners to confidently experiment with speculative AI-driven co-design